Permafrost

monitoring observation locality will allow solving a great number of tasks which define the
influence and functionary of coldness on other crusts of the Earth, including the activity of a
man.
Key words: The monitoring, the snow cover, Earth s crusts, the meteorological stations.
Towards the Satellite Monitoring of Methane Emission from Permafrost
204
Xiao-zhen Xiong 1 , Chris Barnet 2 , Eric Maddy 1 , Xingpin Liu 1
Lihang Zhou 1 , Walter Wolf 1 , Mitch Goldberg 2
(1. QSS Group Inc, Lanham, MD, USA;
2. National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, NOAA, USA)
Abstract: Atmospheric methane (CH4) is the second most important greenhouse after carbon
dioxide (CO2). Its concentration has increased in the past several decades; however, the
growth rate has a considerable inter-annual variation, particularly in the northern hemisphere.
An international research partnership known as the Global Carbon Project identified melting
permafrost as a major source of climate feedback that could accelerate climate change by
releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Current ground-based measurements are
sparse, especially in the sub-arctic region, and are not representative at large scales. Global
space-borne measurements will play an important role to improve our understanding of the
emission and atmospheric transport of CH4, and the exchange of CH4 between lower
stratosphere and upper troposphere.
NOAA plans to exploit operational sounders to derive atmospheric CH4 simultaneously with cloud products,
temperature, moisture, ozone, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
(AIRS), the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) (2006-2021) and the Cross-track Infrared
Sounder (CrIS) (2009-2023). Each of these thermal sounders will make 324,000 soundings per day in
clear and partially cloudy scenes. Here we present a summary of the retrieval methodology, preliminary
validation of the AIRS methane product, and examples of the retrieved CH4 from globally gridded AIRS
measurements from August 2003 through May 2006. Regional variation of the retrieved CH4 in the high
northern hemisphere will be shown in detail.
Probabilistic prediction of the permafrost distribution on the
Qinghai-Tibet Plateau according to a warming climate scenario
Xujun Han, Rui Jin, Xin Li
(Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Lanzhou, Gansu 730000, China )
Abstract: The permafrost is an indicator of the environmental change. The global warming will
change the top position of the permafrost (the depth of summer thaw, i.e. the permafrost table)
and the distribution of warm permafrost closes to its southern/lower limit. In this study, the